The dust upon the rod racks lies undisturbed, and the vise sits idly amid the clutter of my bench. The unrequited fervor of a season closed too soon has passed, and I have settled in for winter.
A dusting of snow greeted my first vision from Angler’s Rest this morning, bringing surprise later on as I learned of school delays throughout the region. While the snow didn’t amount to much, there must have been some icing on the roadways to elicit such panic over a dusting. Hopefully, all are safe.
I turned to my angling library this morning, choosing a little book from 1965; R. Palmer Baker’s “The Sweet of the Year”. Winter always finds me turning my thoughts to the Golden Age of which Mr. Baker writes.
There are many fine writers and anglers who chronicled those years, favorites like Dana Lamb and Sparse Gray Hackle, and world traveled Ernest Schwiebert. Their works provide my sustenance of the soul during the long months of a Catskill winter.
My fly tying has entered it’s annual lull, since there is no fishing on the horizon. Talk of Catskill patterns and history during our Thursday evening Guild meetings will spur my fingers into action soon enough. We will pass mid-December this week, leaving roughly four months of waiting for that first flutter of gray mayfly wings upon the leaden surface of a river still shivering from long days and nights of ice and snow.
Four months still feels like an eternity to the dry fly angler; but four is better than six, eh?
Bright Waters Catskill 